Snowday

I remember that winter because it brought the heaviest snows I had ever seen…

Here is a selection of my favorite pictures from yesterday, minus most of the architectural ones. Class was canceled (after we got there) so I spent the day roaming the city with my camera and getting soaked.

This was what most of my morning looked like. I got up early to get my HIV report sorted and turned in, but then we got that email, so I went out and built a very lifelike snowman in the gardens. When I returned after going to Waterloo, there was no trace of him. Either he was pretty brutally smashed, or he just stood up and walked away.

As I left my flat for the second time that morning, I looked back along Trinity Street and noticed the trees.

On seeing the picture, my friend Kevin asked if that was TARDIS in the background. I was trying to keep my new lodgings under wraps, but you guys are just too keen.

The enterprising barkeeps from the Walrus Social House started the epic walrus after breakfast, and were still going when I happened by. Note the little guy on top.

It was blizzardy out there, so this was all I could see of Parliament. The Thames isn’t quite at high tide yet, and I can’t help wondering if a flood would stop the MPs.

I know the Thames isn’t too dangerous even when the tide’s coming in, but I laud the captain for going out when the entire rest of the city, including the Underground, had shut down.

Here’s Mr. Winston Churchill giving the cold shoulder to an admirer while his comrade chases a pink balloon.

This one I took of the abbey, with trees and the spire of St. Margaret’s conspiring to make it look even more spiky.

I took this one on my way home from Bloomsbury. The British Museum had closed early because the bus and tube systems were down, so I poked around in the London Review Bookshop before heading back. I pass this place at least once a week and really want to go in, but have just never done it. Restaurants are a two person affair around here.

I admit I’m in love with cranes, so I couldn’t pass this up. It was taken right out front of St. Paul’s.

This is the view from the base of the Millenium footbridge, which itself would probably look very familiar to any physics student. I have a thing for roofs, cranes, bridges, and lamps, it seems (I spared you most of those photos), and this shows off two of those, as well as the high tide Thames.

These trees are just outside the Tate Modern, and have never looked so good as in the snow. On the other side of those bushes is Shakespeare’s Globe, which unfortunately doesn’t open until May. In the meantime, though, the RSC is quartered right next to the Strand Campus, so I can’t complain terribly much. Sorry about the smudge; it was guaranteed that my lens would get wet sooner or later.

There are those cranes again, and the eerily spaceship-looking lights of the gherkin. At low tide, the riverboat dock wouldn’t be visible, since the river has something like a 28′ tide. As it was, though, it looked more cozy than where I was standing.

There are considerably more photos in the album which I would love to share, but most of them I took with an eye towards what I see every day, and how it looks different, or are odd little architectural things – a staircase in the plaza, an interesting grouping of roofs, the deserted entrance to Borough Market and such. None of them can so easily be captioned as the ones here, so I’ll save them for another time.

Today was another snowday, although I didn’t have a scheduled class and we got no more snow. I think I’ll just go finish reading The Graveyard Book. It’s fantastic so far, and I do love Gaiman’s style (if not always his endings). If you’re willing to be caught reading a “kid’s book,” I highly recommend this one. If you’re worried it’s not grown up enough, you can either buy the version with the boring cover or just read it as a bedside book. That, however, is a rant for another day.